I am a baker, an animal, and a corpse.
"Is my body something I have, like my car? Or is it what I am? Or something else?"
If my body is something that I have, then, as stated today, I would be able to give it up, and I could give it up forever if the environmental and social conditions encouraged me. It might not be legitimate or ethical, but like a man who can sell his kidney to the highest bidder or one who can consent for someone to eat his body I could still do it.
In an ethical sense, if I am not my body because the aforementioned is false, would I then be my actions? In part, yes; however, there are many things that I do when under the spell of alcohol that I would not dare claim as me. But even in this sense, I can give up or sell my actions given the right price or salary. The division of labor and money allows others to profit off of what I would take to be my labor, the product of my body, which, if I am my body, would be mine and what I am. To add, there are things I suppress myself from doing out of courtesy. Would I then by the courteous action or the intended action?
On this same thread, I also have an idea of myself. I believe I am a nice person who would not be rude to another. However, if someone is rude to me and I lash out verbally or even physically at them, I would have a tendency to explain away my actions for the sake of this idea of myself as a nice person. Another example is that I believe I am not a drunk. Although I drink, I can tell myself that I do not drink as much as others do. Although my actions might signal to others that I am a drunk, the comparison that I think of drinks much more than I do in reality. So, is "this" what I am, the difference between my actions and an idea of myself?
With all that I have to ask myself this question: Why do I have to be anything, so concretely. Why can't I just exist. By that I mean, that I do not take myself to be a thinking thing, but my thinking shows me that I do exist and have a body in which to do so. Is my body then what I am? I can think so, but say when I am older I am diagnosed with diabetes. As a consequence of a bad lifestyle and other factors, I get my feet amputated. Weeks later I die. Years later, a remembrance event is held for me. At that point, would I be the deceased? The diabetic? The amputee? The guy in the office? The jovial child? The culmination of all physical and social representations about me? If I am my body, then there are things that I will never know about myself given that others can see things about me that I cannot externally (like the mole on my neck or anything on my back for that matter) or internally (like a painless nodule on my small intestine).
Therefore, I see that saying that I "am" anything is the wrong question to ask considering that I never really "am" the same thing at any point in time, in a sense. It is my entrance into a society that makes me into something, defines what I was before, and names what I will be when I am no longer in it.
If my body is something that I have, then, as stated today, I would be able to give it up, and I could give it up forever if the environmental and social conditions encouraged me. It might not be legitimate or ethical, but like a man who can sell his kidney to the highest bidder or one who can consent for someone to eat his body I could still do it.
In an ethical sense, if I am not my body because the aforementioned is false, would I then be my actions? In part, yes; however, there are many things that I do when under the spell of alcohol that I would not dare claim as me. But even in this sense, I can give up or sell my actions given the right price or salary. The division of labor and money allows others to profit off of what I would take to be my labor, the product of my body, which, if I am my body, would be mine and what I am. To add, there are things I suppress myself from doing out of courtesy. Would I then by the courteous action or the intended action?
On this same thread, I also have an idea of myself. I believe I am a nice person who would not be rude to another. However, if someone is rude to me and I lash out verbally or even physically at them, I would have a tendency to explain away my actions for the sake of this idea of myself as a nice person. Another example is that I believe I am not a drunk. Although I drink, I can tell myself that I do not drink as much as others do. Although my actions might signal to others that I am a drunk, the comparison that I think of drinks much more than I do in reality. So, is "this" what I am, the difference between my actions and an idea of myself?
With all that I have to ask myself this question: Why do I have to be anything, so concretely. Why can't I just exist. By that I mean, that I do not take myself to be a thinking thing, but my thinking shows me that I do exist and have a body in which to do so. Is my body then what I am? I can think so, but say when I am older I am diagnosed with diabetes. As a consequence of a bad lifestyle and other factors, I get my feet amputated. Weeks later I die. Years later, a remembrance event is held for me. At that point, would I be the deceased? The diabetic? The amputee? The guy in the office? The jovial child? The culmination of all physical and social representations about me? If I am my body, then there are things that I will never know about myself given that others can see things about me that I cannot externally (like the mole on my neck or anything on my back for that matter) or internally (like a painless nodule on my small intestine).
Therefore, I see that saying that I "am" anything is the wrong question to ask considering that I never really "am" the same thing at any point in time, in a sense. It is my entrance into a society that makes me into something, defines what I was before, and names what I will be when I am no longer in it.